A diffferent perspective

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

It really made me stop and think about how our mind colors what we see, and this can pertain to just about anything – a person, a job, a situation, our behaviors, even our yoga practice … and it can be for the good or bad.

To me, I relate it to a few different cliches…
“You can do anything you put your mind to.”
“If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” (or something like that)
“Wherever you are is where you’re supposed to be.”

Intellectually we all know these things are true, yet we rarely stop to see how they apply to our lives.

Think about how many times you are practicing a posture that’s a real challenge for you. For me, it’s any standing balance posture. We tend to get so attached to the outcome. Take uttiha hasta padangusthasana. ‘I have to keep the standing leg strong. I have to extend the other leg and hold it high. I have to turn my dristi down… and then, I have to bring the leg out to the side and still balance! And, if I can’t, I stink!’

Right? Fill in the blank with whatever posture is a challenging one for you.

Now, try to change the way you look at it. ‘This a posture that is focused on grounding and standing tall. It can help with balance. It will help open my back. It’s really just supta padangusthas ana but standing up!

Same posture — just a different way to look at it.

That same philosophy can be applied to so many aspects of life….
Take a job you don’t like and look at it for what it does grant you and try to remember why you liked it to begin with. After all, there had to be some reason you applied for it in the first place.

Take a person who seems like a jerk and try to imagine what they’re going through and why they might be acting that way, or think about how they might have thought what they said was going to come across. Maybe they didn’t mean it that way.

We talk about people wearing rose colored glasses and how that makes everything seem better.

Next time you start feeling negative towards something, put on your rose colored glasses and see i differently.

Or, better yet, do a headstand and see how it looks when it’s flipped upside down.

(and, btw, I found that awesome picture on google images from yogadestin.com and thought it was way too awesome to not share!)